Two episodes ago on The Walking Dead in “What It Always Is,” Negan got into it with Brandon, who told Negan that he’d heard that he’d killed Carl Grimes. “I’d never do that,” Negan says to Brandon. “I never … that was Carl … I would never kill a kid.”
Negan made it clear to Brandon that even in his days as the leader of the Saviors, he still drew a line at killing kids, something he would never do. Or would he? Recall, from the image above, that Negan very nearly did bash Carl’s head in with a baseball bat, only to be prevented from doing so by Ezekiel’s pet tiger, Shiva. It seemed pretty clear to most viewers in that episode that Negan was about to end Carl’s life:
“Well, Rick… you chose this. I truly don’t know what more I could’ve done to warn you. And this isn’t a warning. This is punishment. I’m gonna kill Carl now. I’m gonna make it one nice, hard swing, try to do it in one because I like him. I just want you to put that in your brain and roll it around for a minute. I’m gonna kill Carl, and then Lucille here, she’s gonna take your hands.”
There isn’t a lot of wiggle room in that threat, and yet, fans of The Walking Dead have been legitimately debating over whether Negan would have actually followed through on the threat. He did have a bond with Carl, after all, and he’d had opportunities to kill Carl before but couldn’t bring himself to do so. Some fans say that Negan was faking, as he did when he pretended to swing a bat at Daryl’s head. Some say that, even if he was going to kill Carl, it didn’t count because he was doing it to punish Rick.
Personally, I think he was going to do it, but he wouldn’t do it now, after being humbled by prison. The official The Walking Dead Twitter account seems to agree. I think.
We call that growth https://t.co/WGM9wlu0st
— The Walking Dead (@WalkingDead_AMC) November 11, 2019
That seems to be a definitive answer to the question: He was definitely going to kill Carl, and but eight years in prison softened him. “That’s growth.” The growth didn’t stop him from killing Brandon, however, who is only a few years removed from being a kid himself. Then again, Brandon actually did kill a kid, and that’s just a line you don’t cross.
